


like real people do

by unveils



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: An Unreasonable Amount Of Personal Jason Headcanons Paraded As Fic, Jockstraps, M/M, Tattoos, Tim's Thirst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-23 23:54:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15617817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unveils/pseuds/unveils
Summary: There’s not a lot that surprises Tim anymore. Living in Gotham City has assured him of the existence of the absurd in the most aggressive ways-- man-bats, aliens, magic-- if you can imagine its existence, there’s a possibility that it exists out there. Living in Gotham City with the most paranoid man alive has assured him of that, and certainly given him the means needed to execute fail-safe contingencies for just about any situation.But seeing Jason Todd naked for the first time surprises Tim more than he can say.





	like real people do

**Author's Note:**

> this really is just an ode to how much i love tim thirsting over jason + domestic nonsense. ghost fic update soon i promise

There’s not a lot that surprises Tim anymore. Living in Gotham City has assured him of the existence of the absurd in the most aggressive ways-- man-bats, aliens, magic-- if you can imagine its existence, there’s a possibility that it exists out there. Living in Gotham City with the most paranoid man alive has assured him of  _ that _ , and certainly given him the means needed to execute fail-safe contingencies for just about any situation.  

Seeing Jason Todd naked for the first time surprises Tim more than he can say. 

It’s not something he’d prepared for, to be fair-- Red Robin has about a hundred and one contingency plans for Red Hood, but none that cover Jason Todd, and certainly none that cover him to this extent. What he’s doing isn’t playing with fire, necessarily, any more than the life he lives is asking to be killed. Beneath the chilling veneer that he puts on for the underbelly of Gotham, even for Bruce, for Dick-- Jason is a man. More petulant and sheepish and  _ real _ than Tim could’ve ever imagined in all the years he spent dreaming of the boy beneath the Robin mask. 

Jason’s favorite Indiana Jones movie is Temple of Doom, which, as objectively terrible as it is, he’ll defend to his last breath. He trades paperback romance novels with Barbara, making notes in the margins that Tim doesn’t even pretend he can understand or relate to. He believes in animal shelters as adamantly as he believes in over-tipping at local diners and being on a first name basis with the men and women who make up the East End, however far down on the social totem pole they might be. He’s passionate and surprisingly  _ wholesome  _ and makes the worst jokes Tim has ever heard, all between humming the Ghostbusters theme over comms while on patrol. 

Jason Todd is the most  _ human  _ person Tim has ever met (save for maybe Stephanie), constantly surprising and exasperating him in equal measure. 

He’s also  _ covered  _ in tattoos. Every inch that’s covered beneath his uniform is littered with designs, too many for Tim’s eyes to latch onto just one. They pull over the scars and cuts and bruises that Jason still clearly has, but where uneven skin might otherwise mar a design, Jason’s seem to be integrated by his scars, like the pieces were picked specifically to cater to them. 

Tim  _ knows  _ his stare lingers far longer than is polite, his throat going sandpaper-dry like he’s fifteen again and in Steph’s bedroom trying to look anywhere but how her tanktop straps sank into the freckles of her skin. She’d laughed, of course, warm as always, guiding his hands and leaning in to brush her nose with his. 

_ “Come on, boy toy wonder, I know you’re not that shy.”  _

This is nothing like that and everything like that and Tim is already digging a hole in the pit of his stomach for the knot welling in his throat to sink into. 

He coughs, and Jason turns to glance at him over his shoulder, casual to the point that it borders on rude, as always. “You gonna come over and stitch me up or do I gotta bleed all over this shitty carpet first?” 

Tim had offered. He reminds himself of this, thinking of the bullet that cut through Jason’s thigh when he’d thrown Tim out of the way. He hadn’t been paying attention, a careless mistake-- he should’ve known that there would be backup for a gang, because there’s always backup with gangs. 

Tonight, Jason was his. 

“It’s not a shitty carpet. It’s IKEA.” Tim answers, finally, mechanical. He knows he doesn’t sound as offended as he might otherwise, still steering his brain with a careful and cautious hand. Tim brings himself forward, going for the med kit he keeps in a bookcase compartment and pulling back his cowl. 

Jason settles onto Tim’s couch, carefully pulling his thigh over top the towel Tim put down. They’d bandaged it as best they could with the material in Tim’s belt, stabilizing the bleeding. It still looks rough, but Jason seems to be handling it well. 

“Want anything for the pain?” Tim offers, and Jason grins.  

“‘Tis but a flesh wound.” Tim snorts, and Jason continues. “Nah, kid, I do this shit myself all the time. Get on with it.” 

So Tim does. He pulls open the bloodied ace bandages mechanically, attempting to direct the conversation while he pours alcohol over the bullet hole to distract from Jason’s grimace. 

“I didn’t know you had tattoos.” He says it as casually as possible, with his hands on Jason’s skin, so close. It’s fucked up, Tim thinks, that he can so easily separate these things in his mind: Jason with a potentially mortal wound, and Jason very nearly naked on his couch with Tim’s hands on him. Tattoos. Skin. Blood. It’s fucked up. “They’re, uh--” 

Jason laughs, a breezy, under-his-breath sort of thing that Tim wants to swallow whole. “Yeah, guess I forgot to send the rest of the  _ fam  _ a memo. I started when I was young. Bruce always hated them, but covering was never an issue. There were only a few back then.”  

He continues, and Tim tries not to focus on the way his knuckles go white around the grip he has on the couch as Tim pulls the bullet from his skin. “Jesus  _ fuck _ ,” Jason says, snapping his head to the side in one sudden motion. “Never get used to that, huh? No matter how many times you gotta do it.”

“Can’t all be the man of steel,” Tim jokes, grabbing another bandage. “The first time I had to do this myself with the Titans, Superboy looked like he was going to throw up.”  

Jason hums, something unsteady and lets his fingers trip over the couch arm, nervous energy. “You meet a lot of interesting people on the road. Big boy assassins always have a ton of tattoos. Who would’ve thought?” 

Tim keeps quiet, thinking of Jason’s days before coming back to Gotham with a sort of morbid curiosity. It’s not something to dwell on-- Jason’s pain is his own, certainly the pain he felt with Bruce. But Tim-- 

Sometimes he thinks he wants to know everything about Jason. 

Jason talks through it, thankfully. “Anyway. Got a couple started in Europe and Asia and then finished most of them off myself in Gotham. Never really get used to feeling  _ that  _ kinda pain, either, but it’s better.” 

The first needle point of the stitch through Jason’s skin makes him inhale sharply. 

“You got them to cover your scars?” Tim asks. 

The response is immediate. 

“No,” Jason corrects him, suddenly serious. “Not to cover them.” 

To highlight them, Tim realizes. To paint them in a light that he can control. 

It’s so perfectly Jason, it makes Tim ache. 

“They’re nice.” Tim offers, an understatement. “I had no idea  _ you  _ were artistic.”

“Fuck yeah they’re nice. And fuck  _ you  _ for that, too.” 

Tim smiles a little, finishing off the stitches as quickly as he can. They sit in silence for a handful of moments, Jason twitching through each prick and not offering anything but a soft exhale or sigh. Once it’s finished, Tim pulls his hands off of Jason’s skin with as much decency as possible, trying to get his eyes to follow suit. 

It’s just muscle. They’re only tattoos. It’s just a jock strap.

Jason’s just a man, and Tim is so--

So very--

Interested. 

Jason looks tired and a little worse for wear but comfortable on Tim’s couch, following Tim silently with his eyes as he packs the med kit back up and settles it on the coffee table. Underneath Tim’s skin, there’s this string of nervous energy, jittering like a live wire. 

“Can I get you anything? I have, uhh,” Tim thinks about the content of his fridge right now, nearly empty. “W...ater?” 

Water and Zesti and spray cheese is all he realistically has. Nice going, Tim.

Jason waves him off, and the silence lingers for a bit, awkward and stilted with Tim standing in dead space, waiting.

They’re not even friends, really, it’s just that Tim is in love with him. 

Maybe they’re friends.

Tim hasn’t had friends over in years. 

He lets his eyes drift to the ceiling, suspicious.

Jason snorts, finally, leaning forward. “You wanna see ‘em? You can look, it’s alright. I got nothing but time until this shit heals.” 

Tim thinks it’s probably a little weirder than alright, but he sits back down on the couch. His eyes catch on a piece painted on an ugly scar across Jason’s chest, a grotesque,  _ alive  _ sort of design featuring a city of skyscrapers and smoke pouring from a wounded bird. It’s not entirely subtle, but neither is Jason. Tim lifts a hand, lets it hang in question in the distance between them for a handful of seconds. Jason’s eyes are hard and serious, but startlingly clear. 

Tim lets himself touch, running his fingers over the breadth of the scar, the uneven rope of skin and the way it doesn’t warp the bird, but shapes the smoke. 

“It’s nice,” Tim says again, barely hearing himself. 

Jason kisses him. 

It’s an alive sort of thing, a bruising sort of thing, just like Jason, just like his tattoos. Tim’s entire jaw fits in the palm of Jason’s hand when he reaches up to grip it, pulling Tim towards him. He goes willingly, pressing as much of his body against Jason’s own as he can without falling onto his thigh. He just manages to catch his weight on either side of Jason’s body with his knees, hand still gripping at the skin of Jason’s chest, tight as he can. 

“I literally just stitched that,” Tim says, breathily, shakily, as Jason’s lips brush up underneath his jaw. 

He can feel Jason’s breath on his skin, his tongue. Tim lets his free hand fall to grip at the back of Jason’s neck, fingers brushing through sweat and city grime, what’s left of Red Hood on Jason’s skin.

“You seemed to enjoy it well enough, you little creep.” Jason  _ bites _ and Tim laughs, squeezing at the back of his neck. Before he can retort, Jason pulls him tight across the waist, pressing more of Tim’s weight against his chest.  “I wanna fucking  _ devour  _ you.” 

Tim inhales audibly. “Do you really only wear a jock strap underneath the getup?” 

“Dickie’s not the only one who needs the aerial help, baby.”

Tim aches in pangs, a hollow heat in his chest. He squeezes hard against the back of Jason’s neck, grabbing a hold of the hair there at the base.  “Later.” 

Jason looks up at him with that same heat in his eyes. Tim pulls around the handful of his hair until Jason’s neck is bared, their gaze never breaking. “I’m  _ not _ redoing your stitches if you tear them.”

“Jesus,” Jason breathes, heavy. Tim smooths a hand through the hair and Jason relaxes in inches back against the couch. “You usually this frisky with your patients?” 

“Don’t make me drug you.” 

Jason laughs, and Tim feels so-- fond. 

They wind up watching twenty minutes of the new Star Trek movie before Jason conks out, an arm wrapped around Tim’s waist. 

It’s comfortable.

Maybe not so surprisingly.


End file.
